Top Audio & Video 2002 Milan, Italy

Thursday
Page 2

 

  French company Focal were featuring many of their drivers and also complete loudspeaker products. Seen here is their JMlab line with large floorstanding Grande Utopia (€51,000) and stand mounted Electra 906 (€1,530).

 

In Italy vinyl is highly prized as there were many racks of music to choose from. This includes the usual suspects such as re-mastered RCA Living Stereo and the Classic Records reissue of Led Zeppelin to titles from Verve, Roulette, Impulse!, Decca, and many more!

 

As we are in Italy.... Time for some T+A....

 

No, not that T+A, but T+A electronics… The T+A CD 1240R (€2,500) is a very high-end transport, though can also be used as a CD player as well. Extensive use of copper shielding internally insures low interference from the analog and digital sections.

 

At the Sound Point booth were various cones/points range from €20 to €42 for set of three.

 

The Italian Audio Engineering Society (AES) were helping educate newcomers and the well versed alike with various technical books. See our 111^th AES convention report by clicking here.

 

While most of the world prizes the look of their MAC LCD monitors, the Italians naturally take it up a few notches with their HILINE LCD monitors. Wrapped in seductive wood, accenting contours and other complimenting parts makes this writer desire to live in Italy just that much more!.

 

There was a huge section in the show concerning home automation.

 

Naturally the Linn knekt system was in full force showcasing the advantages of their home wide system. In fact during the recent London show (see report here) i went to Harrods and experienced the Linn home system. Impressive! In fact Harrods appeared to have many Linn systems throughout the store for background music duties.

 

The Audio Analogue room had their Paganini Special Edition CD player, Puccini integrated amplifier, and Corelli stereo power amplifier all working to bi-amplify B&W loudspeakers.

 

Tubes, tubes everywhere as the Nightingale room had many of their amplification products. Why can't we get these in America?

 

In the SAP room were their new Sogno (€65,000) four-way with tube crossover and SAP power amplification included. This system consists of a 1" horn-loaded midrange, compression super tweeter, 10" paper cone woofer, and two 15" subwoofers. In the rear of the 15" subwoofer cabinets are four 8" passive radiators. Most extraordinary indeed.

 

Also in the SAP room was a remarkable gathering of Nagra products including their 4S 0.25" analog tape deck, PL-P pre-amplifier, DAP seven-channel DAC, and Pioneer PD-S06 CD player.

 

    Back To Main Show Report

 

Click here to see our previous year's show report.